The thing is, it’s hard to make different pictures everyday. This is what’s good about the exercise. It forces you to try and think of something to photograph, or to see the world though a different perspective (literally). You are still going to make lots of boring pictures (at least I am) but the practice turns into a thought agility that is very useful.

For the past two years I tried to go to the Chinese New Year Parade in Paris and never made it. This year I did. It was so much fun! Lot’s of color, texture, people and a general feeling of energy.
It was very, very cold but it was worth it.

You can see the whole lot of photos here and download a free iPhone wallpaper here. Enjoy!

Rue des Barres is a little cobblestone street very near Île Saint-Louis. It’s charming and it has a few nice shops. The church you see up the street is the St-Gervais-et-St-Protais Church that, according to Wikipedia, has a very good french baroque style organ. I must check it out one of these days.

Last weekend some friends and I went to “Pâtisserie des Rêves” (literally, “Dream Pastries”) to have some french pastries and tea. I loved it. My life long love of baked goods tells me that I need to go back again.

Aka “Homemade” Neutral Density Filter

View of Pont Saint-Michel, Paris.

In the beginning of the month I wrote about Neutral Density Filters and how expensive it was to get them shipped to France so I decided to follow this article that talked about creating your own with two polarizing filters. I ordered the filters and they arrived safely to my door last week. Yay! for post office efficiency!

Woman walking in Île de la Cité, Paris.

Last weekend I tried them on and this is what I learned:

- You will need a “Circular Polarizing Filter” and a “Linear Polarizing Filter”. I got mine at eBay for about €29 from 2 different vendors. The “CPF” was €20 and if from a German brand named Hoya and the “LPF” was €9 and is made by Rowi;

- You have to screw them to your lens in the correct order -> First the “CPF” and then the “LPF”, or else it doesn’t work;

- Mount your camera in a tripod – You will need this because you’re about to do very long exposures;

- Focus your camera, switch it to manual focus after, if you use Auto Focus;

- Turn the filters until you get your viewfinder black, like you would get if you had your lens cap on;

- Switch the camera to manual and start experimenting. -> For these first photos you can see here I used 30 seconds exposures with a small aperture. I could have opted to do shorter exposures with a wider aperture but that would defeat the purpose, which was to have the buildings in focus while the movement of the people (and the water, in the Saint-Michel bridge) was captured and did a sort of “swoosh effect” (this is a technical term, “swoosh”…);

- As expected, the color aberrations where severe. I had to apply a black and white blue filter in post processing. Surprisingly though, not much more needed postprocessing. I’m very happy with the first results!

Notre Dame de Paris filled with people walking by.

Alas, it started to rain so I had to pack up my gear. Next time I’ll try to do it on a dryer day.

Everybody that knows me knows that I dislike HDR (High Dynamic Range) pictures. I dislike it because it looks bad, most of the time. I’ve seen one or two HDR photos that look cool but I’ve seen thousands that look appalling.

I don’t think that people should be bashed when they do HDR photos but I do think that I need to express my disgust because sometimes newbies feel so fascinated by these novelty gimmicks that they lose themselves forever in a sea of mediocrity.

So, my advice is this:

- Use your time to get to know your camera in detail;
- Study traditional composition;
- Learn more about light;
- Take at least a photo a day;
- Don’t rely on post production to make great photos;
- Trust yourself.